I can still remember the room and everything in it.
I can remember the placement of the bed, the lighting, and where each piece of furniture sat. Trauma can lock memories inside of your head and each intricate detail that accompanies them. Trauma has a way of engraving details so harshly on your soul that they cannot be forgotten or replaced.
I have trouble remembering my own adolescent bedroom, but I remember his. I remember that place and everything about it. The events of that day became tightly woven into my memory.
Memories that are uninvited and unappreciated. Memories we wish to forget, but remain. The pain remains too.
Time has passed. You’ve recovered. You’ve found healing, comfort, and happiness. But you can’t escape the past and the events that filled it. You can’t escape the reality of your misfortunes. You can’t undo the trauma or the heartbreak.
You rarely think about the confusing and shocking moments that filled that day and bedroom decades ago. You rarely think about the abuse and destruction. But rarely doesn’t mean never.
You might have overcome the past, but you haven’t been able to erase it. So you hold it in, tightly, just as you always have. You keep this secret. You keep the hurt. You keep the shame. You keep the memory, even as awful and disgusting as it is.
Inside, you know. You remember.
In a matter of minutes you were permanently changed. Years later, you would become permanently risen. You might remember that room, but you aren’t stuck there. It’s a place you’ll never have to return, even though the memory of it does.
This trauma does not define you. In fact, it created a hero. Not the kind that saves others from destruction and danger. The kind of hero that saves yourself.
You are resilient. You embody inspiring strength. The silence you once housed, created a powerful and meaningful voice. A voice of vulnerability. A voice of truth.
A story of hope and light for those in darkness, recovering from the same damage and destruction.
You never let pain, fear, and suffering, deter you from living…and that has made all of the difference.
